posted at 2:01 pm on September 12, 2013 by Allahpundit

Obama had better run it past Putin right away to see how he wants the U.S. to respond.

Syria will fulfil an initiative to hand over its chemical weapons only when the United States stops threatening to strike Syria, RIA news agency quoted President Bashar al-Assad as saying in a television interview…

“When we see the United States really wants stability in our region and stops threatening, striving to attack, and also ceases arms deliveries to terrorists, then we will believe that the necessary processes can be finalized,” he was quoted as saying in an interview with Russian state television.

He said that in an interview with Russian state television, naturally. Putin told reporters on Monday that the White House must withdraw its threat of an attack on Syria as a precondition to launching the big face-saving weapons inspections charade at the UN but, unless I missed it, said nothing about the rebels. Now here’s Assad upping the ante on the same day that U.S. papers are announcing that American weapons shipments to the rebels have begun. There’s no way Obama will agree to it, needless to say. He accepted the UN deal because it preserved more of his credibility than a landslide defeat in Congress would have, but the more Putin humiliates him and the more demands are placed by Russian and Syrian on the U.S. to preemptively neuter its military options, the more O’s credibility calculus will change. At some point here, continuing this pattycake session with the Kremlin and their degenerate client in Syria will cost him more political capital than simply going ahead and bombing will.

That makes me wonder what the angle is to what Assad said here. Obviously he wants to drag out negotiations at the UN, but the U.S. isn’t going to haggle over a demand that they withdraw completely from the battlefield in Syria. If Assad insists on it, negotiations will collapse quickly and then we’re back to the bombing scenario. Maybe this is more of a rhetorical play to get western media to pay extra attention to the rebels and their relationship with the U.S. If Assad can make this a key point of debate at the UN, he can do damage to the White House even if he’s prepared to eventually drop the demand. The media is filled with stories lately about how radical the rebels are: Mike McCaul said just yesterday that at least 50 percent of them are “bad guys” and Mother Jones is out with a piece this morning exploring how lax the controls are among the “moderate” rebels in keeping U.S. aid away from jihadis. Then there’s this, via the Daily Caller, from an expert who spent time with the rebels in Syria:

“The ‘moderate’ force which we are told about supposedly consists of those rebel brigades aligned with the Supreme Military Command, of Major-General Salim Edriss,” he continued. ”Most of the units aligned with the SMC actually come from a 20-unit strong bloc called the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front. This includes some powerful brigades, such as Liwa al-Islam in the Damascus area, Liwa al Farouq and Liwa al Tawhid. These and the overwhelming majority of the units aligned with the SMC are Islamist formations, who adhere to a Muslim Brotherhood-type outlook.”…

“I spent some time with the Tawhid Brigade in Aleppo city at the height of the fighting there,” Spyer said. ” I interviewed one of the leaders of the brigade. I’ve been in the Middle East for a long time and have worked on these issues for a long time. This was an Islamist fighting force, adhering to an Islamist ideology. So even those forces nominally aligned with western supported bodies are themselves overwhelmingly Islamist in outlook (there may be a very small and marginal number of forces who are ostensibly secular, but these are of no military significance). It’s my contention that the real power in the rebellion lies not in the external structures, but among the commanders of the major fighting groups. These men are Islamists.”

Having Russia and Syria make a big stink at the UN about the rebels being “terrorists” who shouldn’t be supplied with arms will spur more coverage like that, which will drive support in the U.S. for intervening in Syria even lower. That doesn’t mean the White House will agree to shut the weapons pipeline to Assad’s enemies — at this point, simple credibility demands that it stay open — but it can make life even tougher for O.

By the way, in some precincts of the Obama-admiring media today, the Russian denouement is being treated as a big win. No foolin’.

Blowback

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Of course, the United States is going to lose this game and be a zero in world affairs until the end of the Obama presidency. Even if the ghost of Reagan were take over Obama’s body, no improvement is possible until Obama is out of office.

Of course, the United States is going to lose this game and be a zero in world affairs until the end of the Obama presidency. Even if the ghost of Reagan were take over Obama’s body, no improvement is possible until Obama is out of office.

What scares me even more than our feckless and weak President is that the leadership of the opposition party is as, if not more, feckless and weak.

It’s 35 or so years after Jimmy Carter’s feckless and incompetent Presidency – and we’re still paying a high price for the missteps and failings of Carter. We’re going to be paying even longer – and ultimately in blood and treasure – for the fundamentally wrong actions and vision of Barack Obama.

That Threat Worked By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
For all you innumerable skeptics of President Obama’s calls for military strikes on Syria, consider this:

For decades, Syria has refused to confirm that it has chemical weapons. Now, facing a limited strike, its position abruptly changed to: Oh! We do have them after all! And we want to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention! We want to show them to United Nations inspectors.
In short, the mere flexing of military power worked — initially and tentatively. And while it seems that neither Congress nor the public has any appetite for cruise missile strikes on Syria, it will be critical to keep the military option alive in the coming weeks or Russia and Syria will play us like a yo-yo.

To which I can only reply that it’s not a “yo-yo” Obama’s being played for, it’s a “ho-ho”. You know, the kind Al Sharpton dates.

One of my good buds isn’t speaking to me the last couple of days…got in a real heated argument over that same thing…how Obama ridded Syria of chem weapons without firing a shot and should be praised for it…and that Putin played only a very small part.

After writing in the London Telegraph that Monday was “the worst day for U.S. and wider Western diplomacy since records began,” former British ambassador Charles Crawford asked simply: “How has this happened?”

On the answer, opinions might differ. Or maybe not. A consensus assessment of the past week’s events could easily form around Oliver Hardy’s famous lament to the compulsive bumbler Stan Laurel: “Here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten us into!”

IF Obama really was the smart power guy he was touted to be, the genius at … well…everything… including foreign policy… that the LEFT has asserted him to be… he might be able to parlay this ultimatum into the best possible policy for the US and the West in Syria and the Middle East… CONTAINMENT.

There’s no way Obama will agree to it, needless to say. He accepted the UN deal because it preserved more of his credibility than a landslide defeat in Congress would have, but the more Putin humiliates him and the more demands are placed by Russian and Syrian on the U.S. to preemptively neuter its military options, the more O’s credibility calculus will change. At some point here, continuing this pattycake session with the Kremlin and their degenerate client in Syria will cost him more political capital than simply going ahead and bombing will.

I said last night and today that obama’s ego and tiny set will NOT be mocked.

Putin better watch out – obama is clinically ill with NPD.

He’ll bomb, at any blood/treasure cost, just to show Putin.

Btw, people, dead/alive, are just stats fro Putin and obama. No one should kid themselves otherwise.

It did seem kind of strange that Assad would give up his most deadly weapons while the US/al qaeda alliance is attacking him. Giving up his best weapons didn’t help Q’daffy at all. In fact, it made it safe for Obama and his al qaeda allies to go in and kill him.

This is very sad. If it wasn’t so serious it would be laughable. Obambi and Kerry are being played like a fiddle. I see Kerry forgot to wear his cap with the propeller and his whistle ring should things get tough. What an incompetent overmatched pair of dunces.

This is exactly what coldwarrior and I were pointing out the other evening.

No one should ever underestimate Vladimir Putin.

Putin is the ex-head of the KGB. He cut his teeth there. He hasn’t forgotten the lessons he learned there.

Kerry was always a poseur, and one who was willing to sell out his own brothers in arms in the military to garner political capital within the Democrats inner circle, even if that meant lying.He’s also an elitist of the highest order who basks in his own appraisal of his talents and intellect.

While Putin didn’t maneuver Obama and Kerry into making these monumental mistakes in the execution of their preferred policy in Syria, he certainly didn’t miss the opportunity to use their mistakes, and their own personal weaknesses, against them very effectively. It was in how well he read the situation as it unfolded,judging when and how to act, that reflects Putin’s efficiency.

Vladimir Putin is not a genius. He’s not even brilliant. He is smart…he is patient… and he learned his lessons at the KGB very well, indeed.

‘In the village of Estreba they massacred all the residents and burnt down their houses. In the village of al-Khratta almost all the 37 locals were killed. Only ten people were able to escape.

A total of twelve Alawite villages were subjected to this horrendous attack. That was a true slaughterhouse. People were mutilated and beheaded. There is even a video that shows a girl being dismembered alive – alive! – by a frame saw. The final death toll exceeded 400, with 150 to 200 people taken hostage. Later some of the hostages were killed, their deaths filmed.’

A video apparently made by Islamic rebels in Syria shows a large collection of confiscated Bibles and biblical materials, such as the Book of John, that it describes as “more dangerous than chemical weapons.”

The video appeared yesterday, just as reports from Syria said Islamic rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s army were “liberating” villages and forcing Christians there to convert to Islam or die.

Christians reportedly were being abducted and executed, although there were conflicting reports.

The new video of the confiscated Bibles was posted by Eretz Zen, who describes himself as a secular Syrian who opposes “having my country turned into a Taliban-like state.”

The video shows stacks of Arabic language Bibles and other books. A sign is posted with the warning: “O nation of Muhammad, wake up. For there are things even more dangerous than chemical weapons. Beware the Christianization campaigns.”

According to the Eretz Zen site, the footage was taken Sept. 3 in the Syrian town of Jarablus on the Turkish border.

A voice on the video says, “They exploit the needs of Syrian citizens in order to spread Christian thought.”

The narrator also describes a small bag of communion wafers as a “pork meat derivative,” which is supplied “to fool the gullible children with.”

The ‘moderate’ force which we are told about supposedly consists of those rebel brigades aligned with the Supreme Military Command, of Major-General Salim Edriss,

This, from the leader of the ‘moderate’ force:

‘ISRAEL IS AN ENEMY COUNTRY. I SAY THIS LOUD AND CLEAR. It occupies Syrian lands. The FSA will not change its position regarding that country before it withdraws from the Syrian lands, and recognizes the legitimate rights of the Arab Palestinian people.’

- Brigadier General Salim Idris, Chief of Staff of the US-backed Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army